Pechenegs, Byzantine Patzinakoi, Latin Bisseni, Hungarian Besenyo, a seminomadic, apparently Turkic people who occupied the steppes north of the Black Sea (8th–12th century) and by the 10th century were in control of the lands between the Don and lower Danube rivers (after having driven the Hungarians out); they thus became a serious menace to Byzantium. Pastoralists, traders, and mounted warriors originally inhabiting the area between the Volga and Yaik (Ural) rivers, the Pechenegs were attacked by the Khazars and the Oghuz (c. 889). They moved westward (especially as the Khazar state declined and could no longer impede the migration) at Byzantine instigation, driving the Hungarians into the Carpathian Basin and attacking Russian territory.

Kept at bay by the Russians—whose Prince Sriatoslav they killed in battle (972)—and the Hungarians, the Pechenegs repeatedly invaded Thrace (10th century); they increased the frequency and intensity of their raids (11th century) after Byzantium conquered Bulgaria (1018) and thereby became an immediate neighbour of the Pechenegs. In 1090–91 the Pechenegs advanced to the gates of Constantinople (now Istanbul), where Emperor Alexius I with the aid of the Kumans annihilated their army, and another Byzantine victory in 1122 effectively destroyed Pecheneg power. Important Pecheneg settlements were later established in Hungary, probably after their defeat by Byzantium. A key source on Pecheneg history is the De administrando imperii of the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus.

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...formed part of the Turkic Khazar mercantile empire, which was centred on the lower Volga River. Khazar control of the steppe was breached in the late 9th century by the Magyars (Hungarians). The Pechenegs, who followed, dominated much of southern Ukraine in the 10th and 11th centuries, and they were in turn succeeded by the Polovtsians (Cumans). Throughout this period of nomadic invasions,...

In 889, attacks by a newly arrived Turkic people called the Pechenegs had driven the Magyars and their confederates to the western extremities of the steppes, where they were living when Arnulf’s invitation arrived. The band sent to Arnulf reported back that the plains across the Carpathian Mountains would form a suitable new homeland that could be easily conquered and defended from the rear....

...on the northern, the eastern, and the western frontiers. It was nothing new for the Byzantines to have to fight on two fronts at once, but the task required a soldier on the throne. The Pechenegs, a Turkic tribe, had long been known as the northern neighbours of the Bulgars. Constantine VII had thought them to be valuable allies against the Bulgars, Magyars, and Russians. But after...